Egyptian Paddle Dolls

Our senior asked me during the summer if I could please make history "fun" for her final year of high school.  I told her I would try!  The ancient world is her favorite period of history to study so she is thrilled to end her high school career learning about that time period, and she is so artsy/craftsy that I decided one of the ways we would make history fun was to do hands on projects a couple/few times a month.  Our first such project was making Egyptian paddle dolls.

Egyptian girls played with flat dolls made from wood.  We made ours from cardboard.  The girls made girl dolls, and the boys made boy ones. :)

We had beads and yarn available for hair, if desired.  We talked about how Egyptians created art ~ they painted heads in profile, because that was considered the most attractive view, bodies head on (again, most attractive view), and feet in profile.  It made for a very interesting and distinctive perspective!

Here are the finished dolls, from left to right....daughter G's, son G's, daughter H's, son L's, son C's, and Little Man's.  A fun afternoon of painting!